Dale Earnhardt Jr. questions whether Austin Cindric penalty from NASCAR is worse than suspension

The talk of the town in NASCAR is the recent penalty issued to Austin Cindric for his right-rear hook of Ty Dillon. Cindric was docked 50 driver points and fined $50,000, though he avoided an outright suspension.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was discussing the penalty on his podcast when his co-host raised an interesting argument. The co-host said that Cindric’s penalty was “a slap on the wrist” compared to what he could have gotten.

“Not really,” Earnhardt Jr. barked back on the Dale Jr. Download. “Fifty points is a race worth of points.”

The alternative was a suspension. And with new NASCAR rules, that would have included all playoff points accumulated during the regular season being wiped out.

But Earnhardt raised a solid point. NASCAR’s punishment hits differently depending on the driver. What feels one way to Austin Cindric might feel different to another driver.

“How many you think he’s going to get, running the way he’s running? How many playoff points?” Earnhardt said. “It’s debatable what’s at stake. I will say this: I mean he gets to keep racing, he loses a giant bucket of points. With the way he’s running it’s more than one race worth of points that he’s losing.”

Earnhardt actually argued Austin Cindric might be worse off with the regular points penalty than a suspension and loss of playoff points.

“What if he gets suspended a race? Look, I know the playoff points you’re talking about, we’re just speculating about how many playoff points he may get if he makes the playoffs,” Earnhardt said. “Let’s think about this: Say NASCAR did suspend him, right? What if he ran like shit in that race anyways and just cost him 18, 20 points and he’s back on the track. Does that make sense? Points-wise it’s worse.”

He would further break down and delineate that point, because it’s an important one. Austin Cindric hasn’t been running particularly well — though he raced the superspeedways excellently for the majority of the races before being wrecked late — and so the points penalty really stings.

“If it’s a guy who’s getting 50 points or near, 40, 45 points, 50 points a race and he’s going to a great racetrack and he’s getting suspended, you might have your argument where he’s kind of getting a deal,” Earnhardt said. “But this is a guy 50 points is almost two damn races for the way he’s been running. All the points conversation around playoff points, suspension, losing playoff points, all that stuff, it’s a hypothetical for a guy like him.”

Earnhardt looped in other drivers to hammer home the point on Austin Cindric. It’s a compelling case.

“If it was a Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, if it was a (Kyle) Larson where you know, man, these guys could have anywhere from 25 to 40 playoff points, that (suspension is) huge,” Earnhardt said. “Cindric, listen, struggling a bit, not running all that great. How many playoff points really are you talking about him losing if he were to be suspended?

“I think losing the 50 points total is harsher on him because of how they’re struggling than it is a top-five or top-10 team. This is more than a race worth of points that basically kind of might be putting him in a must-win situation to try to get into the playoffs.”